FORWARD AS COPIED BY THE WRITER RE: Christian Group Blasts El-rufai over Claims of Muslims Majority.

Permit me a space in your internationally respected newspaper to write this rejoinder on the above caption published on the 9th of April 2016 by Saturday sun (online). To start with, the entire statement, if anything, aside been childish and laughable, it succeeded in exposing the true mindset of those behind it. It is full of ethnic sentiments, disrespectful attitude towards constituted authorities, attempt to distort facts and blind hatred towards everyone in the state except their kingpin. The statement begins with a short description of what the writers claimed Sokapu is; "an umbrella body for the ethnic nationalities in Christian dominated part of the state"...however, it is a well known fact that despite documented significant number of indigenous Muslims Ummah and their unmatched contributions to the development and progress in that part of the state, no single Muslim person, group of persons, association(s) or leader(s) is in anyway part of this supposed regional bloc. The demand by Sokapu president that His Excellency the governor of Kaduna state should produce empirical evidence to authenticate an internationally proven record of Muslims Majority that constituted 70 per cent in the state is laughable and diversionary. As the chief security officer of the state, the governor will not say anything that is not factual. However, the Sokapu or its head can challenge all of these by producing empirical evidences proven otherwise. Or better still, nominate a governorship candidate in the next election and use your numerical strength to make him a governor since as they said "politics is a game of number". Again, because there was no question asking Nigerians their religious leaning in the 2006 census makes Sokapu protest baseless and unfounded. It makes one wonder how or why they should dispute the governor's position, who by virtue of his position has all the facts, figures and statistics of everyone and everything in the state within his reach. To call the governor's position careless and reckless was the most disrespectful attitude towards a popular and result oriented driven government. There was no way stating the facts can be seen as religious intolerance, on the contrary, it is one's refusal to accept to truth that should be condemned by all. The group's wailing that the Minister, Secretary of the State government (SSG), the Chief of Staff, the Principal Private Secretary, the Speaker of the House of Assembly for the first time were all from El-Rufai's side was ridiculous. The patterns of those appointments are natural and commendable since like I pointed out earlier, politics is a game of number and there are many who believed that were the population of Kaduna state is 70 per cent against Muslims, they will not in anyway be close to the central government of the state as exemplified in the structure of Sokapu. The case of neighboring Plateau state (in the same axis with Sokapu) quickly comes into mind. With far more Muslims in Plateau state than there are Christians in Kaduna state, Muslims were sidelines in the governance and day-to-day affairs of that state. With this kind of ungrateful attitude, baseless and unfounded allegations, the argument for Plateau State style of governance is getting strong ground. Sokapu should therefore checked within and learned to accommodate all irrespective of our differences. The posts of deputies governor and speaker of Kaduna state is always given to southern part of the state not because the Muslims don't have the voting power to produce the governor and his deputy or the speaker and his deputy but simply because of the belief that we are all creation of Allah (SWA). We also need not to forget that the State House of Assembly is an independent arm of government as such, it affairs, leadership and day-to-day activities should be view independent of that of the state government. Finally, for the state government to succeed in preventing the use of religion as political weapon henceforth, the three senatorial zones as recognizes by the constitution should be the basis for allocating positions, resources and or responsibilities be they elective or appointing, employment, promotion, admission to schools etc and not the north/south idea because this is actually what is fueling religious intolerance. Abubakar G. Bala Department of English Federal College of Education, Zaria agbala2007@yahoo.com 08030651830, 08071719202


Kagarko.